


Water in Our Hands

by tmariea (OccasionalArtist)



Series: Between the Lines [1]
Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Water Armatus, water artes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-03
Packaged: 2019-01-28 20:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12614428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccasionalArtist/pseuds/tmariea
Summary: Sorey wants to learn how to use water artes.  With the help of the armatus, this is something Mikleo can finally teach him.





	Water in Our Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Owlily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Owlily/gifts).



> For Owlily, as a very Happy Birthday (sorry it's late!)
> 
> Also, there isn't much of a framework for how using seraphic artes actually works, so we're taking some creative liberties here. A lot of creative liberties... Hopefully my explanations feel reasonable!
> 
> Much thanks to the lovely ArdentKnight for being my beta!!!! Much love <3

There was a small stream near the entrance to Marlind, this Mikleo knew.  He had managed to notice it in spite of their chaotic arrival in town because it was nearly impossible for him to miss the presence of his element.

That stream was his goal as he picked his way through the streets that gently rose and fell with the sway of the land.  So much had happened that day, between the hellhounds and the museum and purifying Rohan.  The way that Atakk had lent strength to him and Sorey, it felt as if there were still traces of it running through his veins.  After everything, Mikleo could use a bit of peace and quiet while the others returned to the inn to rest.

He reached the small bridge over the water and picked his way along the grassy banks until he found a section which wasn’t too steep.  He made his way down to the stream and selected a dry, flat spot where he could sit.  The tips of his shoes almost touched the current while he leaned back on his hands.

The town was quiet, nothing to disturb the sound of the flowing water.  It was a calmer silence, too, not nearly as ominous as it had been on their arrival.  Some unnatural darkness still lingered in the air, but the full moon cast its bright light from a cloudless sky.  It amazed him the impact only a day of work purifying the town could have.  If they could affect this much change, perhaps there would be hope for the dream he and Sorey shared after all.

Mikleo barely had time to settle into the burbling noise of the stream, the cool crisp feel of the air just above the water, when he heard a voice.

“I had a feeling I would find you here.”

He glanced behind him.  Sorey was picking his way down the bank, watching his feet carefully for loose rocks or slick patches of grass that might send him tumbling into the water.  Not that Mikleo wouldn’t help if he did slip, but it might take a minute or two of laughing first.

“I had a feeling you would find me here, too,” Mikleo replied as Sorey reached his spot and settled down next to him.  “Although, aren’t you supposed to be resting?”

Sorey passed over the last comment and said instead, “You know, if we’re ever in a place that needs water, we should just hold you up by your ankles and let you point the way.”

“Ah, the old ‘use the water seraph as a dowsing rod’ joke – as if you haven’t been telling that one since you learned what a dowsing rod is.”

“It’s a tried and true classic,” Sorey said in defense of his terrible joke.

“And I was out here for some silence,” Mikleo sighed, watching as Sorey’s face morphed into a pout.

“I can be silent.”

“I highly doubt it.”

Sorey hummed deep in his throat and shifted closer to Mikleo until they were pressed side by side.  He lifted a hand to Mikleo’s head to guide it down to rest on his shoulder, while his fingers began to comb gently through the strands of his hair.

Mikleo let a long, relaxing sigh flow through his nose.  With Sorey here, and the cool evening breeze against his face, it was almost possible to pretend that they were back in Elysia again.  Growing up had been an endless string of days filled with sparring, reading, hunting prickle boars, and curling up close like this.   Now, it felt as if they could hardly catch a breath between one disaster and the next.

“Are you doing alright?” Sorey asked.

Mikleo made a sound which could be taken as a yes or a no.  “Are you doing alright?” he countered.  Just as Sorey knew that he was feeling the strain of such rapid change, he knew that something was wrong with Sorey’s eyesight.  He’d been missing details on his right side for days now, small things at first, but growing bigger.  Still, it would be nice to hear it from his mouth.

Sorey mimicked Mikleo’s own noncommittal noise.  It wasn’t what Mikleo had wanted to hear, but that was alright.  He would just have to continue standing strong beside Sorey, wherever and however he needed him the most.

They lapsed into silence.  Sorey kept stroking his hair and Mikleo watched the sky.  Overhead, the stars turned and the full moon slipped closer to the horizon.  He looked down at the water to catch sight of the moon’s reflection, and coaxed a tendril of water up to watch the way the light shone against it.  He made it sway above the stream, saw the shimmer catch and flicker, and then brought it close.  He coalesced the water into a sphere and cupped his hands against the shape.

“Hey Mikleo,” Sorey said suddenly.

Mikleo hummed to signal his attention as he passed his hand across the top of his sphere.  It gave in tiny ripples under his palm, but kept its form under the control of his artes.

“Can you teach me how to do that?”

“Sorey,” Mikleo replied, letting his water gently back down into the stream, “you asked that last when we were six.  You know you can’t use seraphic artes.”

“With the armatus, I can!” Sorey insisted.  “But, I don’t know anything about how it works.  I know I’ve been leaning on all of you, and I want to be more of a help.”

Mikleo considered for a moment.  The armatus really had opened a new world of possibilities for them, and to have Sorey share in this?  Something that had always set them apart?  He hadn’t thought about it like that before, but just the idea of closing even a bit of the gap created by their races made his heart tighten in his chest.

“You are supposed to be resting though,” he tried again, one last-ditch effort at being the responsible one.

“And I will.  We’ll sleep as long as we need to in the morning, I promise.”

Mikleo bit his lip, tried to hold out against the sincerity in Sorey’s voice, and failed.  He nodded.

“Thank you!” Sorey cried, and threw himself forward to grab Mikleo up into a tight hug.  He cradled the back of his head, worked his fingertips back into Mikleo’s fine hair, and murmured in his ear, “Luzrov Rulay.”

Mikleo felt a shiver pass down his spine to hear his name so slow and quiet, not shouted and hurried.  Then they were forming into one, and that felt different too.  It wasn’t a swift tug across a battlefield, but rather a melting into each other, into spaces that seemed to be made for just this.

When the transformation settled, they took another moment to breathe, sitting there on the bank of the stream.  The chance to feel their heart beating and lungs expanding together was a luxury they hadn’t yet been able to appreciate.

“Alright, start by feeling the mana in your body,” Mikleo began.  He tried to say it through their mouth but it came out as mostly Sorey’s voice, which was strange.  He also maybe got a bit caught up in the thought that it would be his mana, in Sorey’s body; which was a cause for blushing and shutting down those thoughts quickly before Sorey noticed, or their heart started beating faster in response.

Instead, he directed his mind toward finding the flow of energy in their veins, in their breath; it lived in the churn of their gut, the spark of thoughts in their mind, the foundation of their feet rooted firmly to the earth.  He sought the cool tingle so much like rushing water, and let Sorey’s mind follow.  When he felt Sorey might have a handle on the sensation, Mikleo let it go so he could try to find it again.

“Okay, what next,” Sorey said once he had a grasp on their mana.  It wasn’t a firm grasp, Mikleo could tell, but that would be a matter for practice.

“Next is to feel for the mana in the world around you,” Mikleo replied.  “Find what resonates with yours.  For now, that will be the stream.  With more experience, you can find the water that exists in the air around us, or create it from our mana.  But, to begin, this will be easiest.”

He sat back again and watched Sorey questing around them with his senses.  After a moment, he lost his grip on their mana, and made a frustrated noise.  Mikleo could feel him diving back into themselves, trying to gather it up again, but he guided their thoughts to a gentle halt.

“One piece at a time, perhaps.  You can always find ours again.  You have the feeling, right?”

Sorey nodded, and Mikleo drew a calming breath through their nose and out again.  “Once more.”

Since there wasn’t anything else they were trying to concentrate on, it seemed that Sorey might have it, that sweet sensation that called back and set their own mana to singing.  But then it slipped away.  He scowled, and Mikleo knew Sorey was fighting against the impulse to stamp his foot like a child.  He could feel the day’s exhaustion coalescing too, in the way it seemed as if their shoulders hung too heavy on their frame.  Mikleo wondered if maybe they shouldn’t do this tonight, but pushed the feeling away  It wouldn’t be right to leave things like this, with Sorey feeling as if maybe he wasn’t able to use artes after all.

“Ahh!” Mikleo exclaimed, forgetting how strange it would sound from their mouth in his moment of excitement.  “This will help,” he continued, and nudged their legs to crouch so they were close to the stream.  He plunged their hands into the water.

Sorey yelped at the temperature, and bit back the reflex to take control of their hands again and jerk away.  “That’s freezing!” he whined.

“It’s snowmelt from the mountains.  It’s no colder than the streams near Elysia.”

“Yeah, and there’s a reason I didn’t usually go in them.”

Mikleo gave a mental scoff, but then he asked, “Do you feel it?  The way the water flows, the way it feels on our skin, the energy and life in it.  Do you feel the ways in which it is similar to our mana?”

Sorey took a deep breath, cast off his discomfort, and tried to look for what Mikleo described.  After a moment, he nodded.

Mikleo lifted their hands, instructing as calmly as he could, “Hold onto that feeling.  Sense it as if you’re still touching the water.  It’s like,” Mikleo paused, trying to think of the best way to say this.  He didn’t even think humans had a sense for mana, so how could he put that feeling into words Sorey would understand?  “It’s like, a song, but on your skin instead of in your ears, and the water is the singer.”

Their eyes had slipped shut again, but this time Sorey was calm and centered.  His mind held tight to the sensation of the cold water over his hands, chased the feeling in the air as Mikleo slowly brought them to stand again.  He had it.  Their mouth smiled slightly, but Sorey pushed down the urge to exclaim his joy at the risk of losing the feeling again.

“Now, gather up our mana again.  Think of it as a tool to shape the water and its mana to your will, the same as you would use an awl to shape leather, or I would use a spoon to mix ice cream.”

Sorey nodded, trying to let his excitement simmer down to a more relaxed state where he could handle both.  Mikleo slipped a subtle bit of his own control across their hold on the mana in the stream, just to make sure they didn’t lose it again.  Once Sorey had both in his grasp, he thought of a hand for himself, one made of mana, to reach out and shape the water in the stream.  He gathered a bit of it, just enough to fill the palm of their mana hand.

Mikleo opened their eyes so Sorey could see his accomplishment.  Their face opened up with Sorey’s surprise, and he almost dropped the wavering pocket of water.  Mikleo stepped in just enough to hold it in place.

“Very good!” He thought.  “Although with more practice you won’t need to visualize shapes for our mana quite so much.”

“A compliment?  What’s gotten into you tonight?”

“It’s your first arte, Sorey!”   _The first chance to do something he never expected Sorey would get to do.  The first time they could share this._

A dreamy smile split their face, and Mikleo groaned.  It came out as a rather strange sound between the two of them.  He should have known better than to try to keep those last thoughts to himself when they were in each other’s heads.  “Can you try to take control again?”  He deflected.

The smile stayed firmly in place, Sorey’s full awareness of what Mikeo was trying to do bouncing between them.  But he said, “Alright,” and reached forward to take hold of their mana while Mikleo stepped back.

He held the undefined shape, trying to figure out what mental tricks it might take to smooth the water into a sphere the way that Mikleo had earlier.  It took on a more even shape, but still imperfect.  It didn’t seem like Sorey minded.  Instead, his thoughts flashed through shapes and images he wanted to try.  There was a big, watery heart in there somewhere, but Mikleo did his best to push that one away before the idea could take root.

He settled on trying to make a ring of water, images of the smoke rings Gramps used to blow from his pipe prominent in his mind.  For a moment, Sorey struggled with thinking how he might shape the water, whether to think of it like twisting rope, or rolling it like dough.  He settled somewhere between, and managed himself a long, thin cylinder, but with sort of a lumpy twist down the length.  He went to take the ends and round them together, but the center dropped away and back into the stream with a splash.  The two bits of the end he’d tried to hold still hung in the air.

Mikleo couldn’t help the burst of laughter at Sorey’s surprise coursing through them.

He was cut off with a pout and an exclamation of, “Hey!  As if I didn’t see you fail artes all the time when you were first learning.”

“It is to be expected,” Mikleo consoled, trying to tamp down as best as he could on his amusement.

“What went wrong?”

“Well, it’s water.  As much as thinking of it as something else, like rope or dough, might help you with ideas of how to shape it at first, it will still always be water.  Let any part of it out of your control and it will fall to the ground.”

Sorey nodded his understanding and gathered himself to collect more water for another try.  But, when he turned his attention back to the two points of water they still held, it was to find that the water had lost its shape.  It was indistinct, and almost looked as if it was dripping down a window.  The drops rippled once, and then fell into the stream with twin, disappointing plops.

“Now that’s because you weren’t focusing,” Mikleo remarked.  “And I think some of that might have to do with needing rest.  You know, like you were supposed to do before.”

“Aw, Mikleo,” Sorey whined, letting their shoulders droop.

Mikleo let Sorey have a sense for how stubborn he was going to be about this; there would be other times to play around in the water.  But, to appease him, he took hold of their mana again and reached for the stream.  Sorey, catching Mikleo’s intentions, gladly fell back to watch.

Mikleo gathered more water from the stream, pulling it up and out as a long rope to begin with.  Then, he twisted the ends as Sorey had intended to do, making sure to work slow and give him an opportunity to watch how he held control over the whole shape.  For an added flourish, he chilled the water around just the edges of the ring, so that as he reached out to take the ice in their hand, the water just under the thin layer sloshed and swayed.

“Whoa,” Sorey said, as their eyes grew wide and their hands clasped around the ring.  He had no more complaints for the cold as he turned the ring around in circles watch the water move.

After Sorey had the chance to play for a moment, Mikleo crouched them down by the stream again to lay the ring in the water.  He held it steady against the current with an arte as it began to melt.  Sorey leaned back on their heels until they plopped to the ground with a sigh.  They watched the ice bobbing in the stream and the edge of the moon just beginning to sink below the wall around the town.  There was a contentment in the chance to just be them together, and a calm sleepiness weighing down their limbs.  Mikleo knew the drowsiness at least was Sorey’s, but he didn’t think he would mind a night’s sleep either.

“You know what the downside to the armatus is?” Sorey mused, breaking their silence.

“What?”

“I can’t kiss you like this.”

Mikleo couldn’t resist bringing their hand up to their forehead.  “And I can’t elbow you for that line, so it looks like we both lose.”

Sorey made a sound of contemplation, and then a mischievous smile crossed their face.  Suddenly, the armatus was dissolving, and each was falling back into himself.  Even with the bit of advanced warning on Sorey’s intentions, Mikleo didn’t manage to scramble away in time to avoid being gathered up and crushed to Sorey’s chest.

Fingers touched the tip of his chin and barely pressed up, but he responded anyway, turning his face to meet Sorey’s.  He caught a glimpse of green eyes just as they slid shut, and lips met his own.

The kiss was gentle and unhurried, as if Sorey wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of the night exploring Mikleo’s mouth.  That was certainly a possibility, one that Mikleo wouldn’t mind entertaining.  His cheeks were hot, but Sorey’s hands were warm, too, where they rested on his back.

When it came time to part for a breath, Mikleo rested his forehead on Sorey’s shoulder and mumbled, “Point taken.”

“Does that mean I get more kisses?” Sorey asked, both hopeful and proud of his proper defense of argument.

“In the morning,” Mikleo said, and moved to stand.  He brushed off his pants and tried not to give in to Sorey’s disappointed look.  He offered a hand, which Sorey took and used to rise to his feet as well.

“Really?”

“Really.  Although, I might be convinced for a goodnight kiss if you head back to the inn posthaste.  Now, shoo.”

Sorey took a few steps up the bank, and then looked back when he noticed Mikleo wasn’t at his side.  “Are you coming?”

“Yes, I’ll be there in a minute.  You can go on ahead.”

He shrugged and resumed picking his way up the rise.

Mikleo watched until Sorey reached a dip in the land and disappeared from view.  For a moment, he was left to the silence he had craved, joined only by the burbling water and the rustle of the leaves of the Great Tree.  He closed his eyes and breathed in a long, deep breath of the clean air, and then turned to follow.


End file.
